There's something slightly askew about a truck award that goes to a car.
While automotive marketing is rife with absurdities, mangled language and downright disingenuous claims, automotive journalists can usually sort out the hype and prevarications. Apparently not so this year when it came to the North American Truck of the Year Award.
The Truck of the Year was given at the North American international Auto Show to a car-based vehicle – the new Ford Explorer.
The irony of calling this car – or crossover – a truck is compounded by fact that in 2010, the North American Truck of the Year was the Ford Transit Connect – an outright commercial vehicle, according to its maker.
Adding to the confusion were several $ billion programs for commercial pickup trucks in 2010 – the Chevrolet Silverado HD/GMC Sierra HD and the Ford F-150 Super Duty pickup truck. All of these programs were ambitious, delivering solid value to the small businesses that use trucks as, well, trucks to build, sell, haul, fix or move things, and not as fashion accessories to park outside a favored barbecue joint or roadhouse.
Across the board, these work trucks from Chevrolet, GMC and Ford deliver greater load and towing capability, improved ride and handling, long term durability, and in many cases better fuel economy. They just didn’t fit into the judges’ definition of what is a truck since they were too big or, well, they were trucks. Tsk, tsk.
Abraham Lincoln once successfully argued a case by posing the following question: If I call the tail a leg, how many legs does a horse have? The correct answer Lincoln averred was four, since calling a tail a leg, doesn’t actually make it one.
To be fair it’s a long standing problem, compounded by multi-billion automaker marketing budgets that attempt to square the circle in various ways – first it was trucks, real trucks with car like qualities; then, crossovers built from cars but with truck-like capabilities; or not a minivan or a truck but a multi-activity vehicle, whatever that is.
Maybe next year the tail won’t be a leg when the Truck of the Year is announced…
About Ken Zino
Ken Zino, editor and publisher of AutoInformed, is a versatile auto industry participant with global experience spanning decades in print and broadcast journalism, as well as social media. He has automobile testing, marketing, public relations and communications experience. He is past president of The International Motor Press Assn, the Detroit Press Club, founding member and first President of the Automotive Press Assn. He is a member of APA, IMPA and the Midwest Automotive Press Assn.
He also brings an historical perspective while citing their contemporary relevance of the work of legendary auto writers such as Ken Purdy, Jim Dunne or Jerry Flint, or writers such as Red Smith, Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson – all to bring perspective to a chaotic automotive universe.
Above all, decades after he first drove a car, Zino still revels in the sound of the exhaust as the throttle is blipped during a downshift and the driver’s rush that occurs when the entry, apex and exit points of a turn are smoothly and swiftly crossed. It’s the beginning of a perfect lap.
AutoInformed has an editorial philosophy that loves transportation machines of all kinds while promoting critical thinking about the future use of cars and trucks.
Zino builds AutoInformed from his background in automotive journalism starting at Hearst Publishing in New York City on Motor and MotorTech Magazines and car testing where he reviewed hundreds of vehicles in his decade-long stint as the Detroit Bureau Chief of Road & Track magazine. Zino has also worked in Europe, and Asia – now the largest automotive market in the world with China at its center.
